Box blade advice

[CoyPatton]

2 recommendation (with conditions)
1st recommendation:WIDTH—
For your drive way, with means more passes as it is established. At 5.5’ BB and probably at 5’, with practice and regular grading, you will be able to grade it in 3 passes. I doubt that with a 6’ blade you will be able yo do it in less than 3 passes as a general rule. Those passes would be each side then down the middle.
For smoothing your yard or leveling areas, width is more of an issue, if your BB is not wide enough that your tires will be on the same level during passes, you will be frustrated with your results. An experience operator, with additional pieces of equipment (several approaches to deal with this) can overcome this issue, but there is a steep learning curve.
I suggest a slightly wider than your rear tire stance for this to be readily overcome.

2nd recommendation:Weight
Simply the wright of your implement determines the ground engagement of the implement. A BB I would consider to be a ground engaging implement.
So my recommendation is to get the heaviest BB in the width that you need. 2 conditions on this your tractor needs to be able to lift it with out struggles and your budget. Width and weight are both price factors even in the used BB market.

One final comment covid has done a number on the availability and price of new and used market. Research what you need then if/when you find that BB that fits your needs, but it right then! NEW OR USED DO NOT HESITATE!

 

[jeff9366]

If your BB is much narrower than your tire spread, and you pull in one alley repeatedly, your tires will soon be up on narrow ledges and the centered BB will not touch the ground.

Tractor tire weight will mash down minor differences of 1" to 1-1/2" per side.

In the attached photo, two years old, the 60" wide community burn pit is now 40" below grade. Just removed ashes and dirt last evening. Note: Bush Hog (brand) Rollover Box Blade.

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[SuperHerb]

I also recently got my tractor, a Kioti DK4710SE, and my tire width was about 67" and I bought the Kioti (made by Woods) 72" box blade. It's well built. I would not go narrower than the rear tires after using it. It's a bit lighter than the commonly recommended 100lb/ft width at 550ish pounds but I had no issues easily using it to generate soil for a berm for my shooting range that is about 30 ft wide by 6.5 ft tall. My soil is heavy clay with a lot of small rocks. I did it when the soil was still somewhat moist from spring thaw and I never felt the need for more cutting ability, I could easily adjust the hydraulic top link to bring the tractor to a halt with the rippers one notch down if I wanted to yet it was easy to generate a full box blade of soil in a 20' run with a bit less aggressive angle. When I went to break up the dry compacted clay after driving over it continuously while building my berm I used only the rippers, same thing....traction limited me as to how aggressive I could adjust the blade. More than anything, a hydraulic top link is a must!

I wouldn't want to go any lighter than the Kioti blade, but I don't feel that heavier is completely necessary. I was prepared to add additional weights to the blade but didn't need to and I think what I did will be the hardest it will ever work. A driveway will be less stress. Frankly, the biggest thing that a heavier box blade would do for me is help better balance the usage of the front end loader and that would have been nice. Carrying a full 72" bucket of clay soil just generated by the blade made the back end feel a bit light and bouncy, and that was with 110 pounds of ww fluid in each rear tire. I'm working on a concrete counter weight but if you're generating soil with the box blade and want to move it with the loader, switching the back end counterweight is gonna be a pain in the butt extra step and that's where a really heavy box blade would really shine imho.

 

[ripHST]

This is a lot great info guys....I really appreciate it.

One final comment covid has done a number on the availability and price of new and used market. Research what you need then if/when you find that BB that fits your needs, but it right then! NEW OR USED DO NOT HESITATE!

you aren't kidding.

If your BB is much narrower than your tire spread, and you pull in one alley repeatedly, your tires will soon be up on narrow ledges and the centered BB will not touch the ground.

Tractor tire weight will mash down minor differences of 1" to 1-1/2" per side.

In the attached photo, two years old, the 60" wide community burn pit is now 40" below grade. Just removed ashes and dirt last evening. Note: Bush Hog (brand) Rollover Box Blade.

Attachments

• 
  DSC00071.jpg

  4.9 MB · Views: 552

That picture illustrates it perfectly. It should be on the cover of the BB buyer's guide, wherever that is.....well I guess that's TBN.

More than anything, a hydraulic top link is a must!

I'm getting that impression. I think I'll be researching this next. I'm getting a TYM T474 and I saw a series of posts about the remotes not being set up to work well with a hydraulic top link, which has me worried, but I don't recall if it was actually a design flaw or an implementation problem. I'll need to look into that.

I've been texting with my dealer as I've been writing this and he's got a 72" Taylor-Pittsburg coming with my name on it. Should be here first week of June. Thanks Coy for the reminder to not hesitate. it might be the only BB in NYS! Not the heaviest one I could have gotten but the price is right and it's available. I'm sure I'll get some work done with it.